Officer Bruce Reynolds, forty-one, joined the
Port Authority Police in June, 1986. His partner
of fifteen years, George Hickman, told The
Star-Ledger that Reynolds “was a
good cop…If you could exemplify the qualities
you’d want in a police officer, he was
it.”

Reynolds grew up in the Inwood section of Manhattan.
As a teenager, he had a keen interest in the
neighborhood garden and spent hours tending
the spectacular array of roses, evergreens,
mums and violets. He studied advertising and
communications at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
He then became a ranger in the city parks. After
he joined the Port Authority in 1986, he was
stationed at the bus terminal on 42nd Street.
It was there he got to know Officer Michael
Barry who later worked with him at the George
Washington Bridge. A formidable team when it
came to drug arrests, the two of them were together
for thirteen years. Barry had the task of filing
the missing person report for Reynolds.

On September 11, Officer Reynolds was sent
to the Twin Towers from his post at the George
Washington Bridge. Though he had respiratory
problems, he went into the South Tower to help
with the rescue effort.

On the day of his funeral, the upper deck of
the George Washington Bridge was closed in both
directions for about five minutes as the hearse
drove slowly to New Jersey. When the caravan
of two motorcycles and ten cruisers stopped
at the Bridge Plaza South command post, a bagpiper
played and the officers saluted.

Reynolds married his wife, Marian, who was
from County Donegal in Ireland, in 1993. They
enjoyed frequent trips to Donegal, where Reynolds
was well respected by his in-laws. He enjoyed
living in Knowlton, New Jersey, where he could
pursue his interests of gardening and fishing.
He is survived by Marian and their children
Brianna and Michael.

Portraits of Grief, The New York Times

The Man Behind the Camera

Somehow, most of the pictures from that last
weekend are of Brianna Reynolds at the Bronx
Zoo, coasting above the trees on the safari
ride, or back in her grandparents’ apartment
in Inwood for her fourth-birthday cake. Her
father, Bruce Reynolds, must have stayed on
the business side of the camera.

That weekend, Brianna and her baby brother,
Michael, played in the rooms where their father
had grown up, a city kid in a sixth-floor apartment
in northern Manhattan who loved nature. A bird
cage ran from the floor to the ceiling. Down
the street was the garden in Isham Park that
Officer Reynold’s parents, J.A. and Geri
Reynolds, had cultivated and where Bruce, their
only son, planted cherry plum trees.

When Bruce Reynolds met Marian McBride, they
settled in Knowlton, N.J., not far from the
Delaware Water Gap. There, they could fish,
grow vegetables, swim in their own pool.

It was a long ride for Officer Reynolds, 41,
to the George Washington Bridge and his work
as a Port Authority police officer, but he was
undaunted by big journeys. “They often
went to Donegal in Ireland, where Marian is
from,” said his father. “Bruce loved
it there. That gave me joy.”

His father has planted bulbs at the garden
in his sons’ memory, and the Port Authority
has promised a flagpole. “Maybe they’ll
raise it in the spring,” Mr. Reynolds
said. “When the daffodils bloom.”